Generally, electrical connectors include a dielectric housing mounting a plurality of conductive terminals for making electrical connection between a pair of electrical devices or conductors. For instance, an electrical connector may interconnect a conductor of an electrical wire to a circuit trace on a printed circuit board. A connector may interconnect a battery contact with a circuit trace on a printed circuit board. Electrical connectors have been provided in a myriad of designs and constructions.
Various electrical connector assemblies include terminals which have rigid base sections for securing the terminals in the dielectric housing of the connector assembly. Other portions of the terminals, such as contact means, spring contact arms, etc. project from the rigidly secured base sections. Such terminals may be fabricated as stamped and formed sheet metal components, with the base sections of the terminals being forced into cavities in the dielectric housing. The base sections may include barbs along opposite edges thereof for skiving into the plastic material of the housing for rigidly securing the terminal in its cavity.
For instance, these types of terminals are used in recharging and data retrieval apparatus, such as a portable telephone. A hand held phone set is positionable into and removed from a cradle formed by a base unit. The hand held phone set has exposed contact means, and the base unit often has a plurality of spring contact arms exposed thereon for engaging the contact means of the hand held phone set, such as for recharging the batteries thereof. The terminals of the base unit include base sections insertable into cavities in a dielectric housing to secure the terminals thereon, with the spring contact arms projecting from the base sections for engaging the contact means of the hand held phone set. The terminals also may include solder tails for engaging circuit traces on a circuit board within the base unit.
One of the problems with such electrical connector assemblies involves mounting or inserting the terminals into their respective cavities. Insertion tools often are used for inserting the terminals into their cavities, and the insertion forces must be transmitted to the base sections of the terminals which are rigidly secured to the housing. This problem is magnified when the terminals include more than one spring contact arm, such as when a terminal has one spring contact arm for surface engaging a contact of a battery and a second spring contact arm for surface engaging a circuit trace on a printed circuit board. The present invention is directed to solving these problems in an electrical connector having one or more terminals of the character described.